Every day, Don Chan read three newspapers. It didn‘t matter which three. He liked being surprised. In the end, the news summed up to be the same. History repeated itself, and somehow, no matter how much people knew about the causes and effects of their actions, the patterns of current events didn‘t change. Throughout his life, this fact had baffled him.

Don Chan breathed in the absence of chaos that filled the streets during the day, imagining that behind all the windows, the children were getting ready to go to school, people were preparing to leave their houses to go to work, and his day was one blank canvas. He walked over to the luncheonette across the street, up the block, on the corner of his house, and noticed that a young girl was sitting in his favorite booth by the window.

Don Chan hesitated for a moment. He was often forgetting things. Some days, he spent hours trying to finish one task and remembering he had forgotten what he was looking for and then having to get up to search, only to forget again.

—Let the old man sit down.

Oswaldo, the counterman who was wearing a cheap tuxlike uniform and a name clip, directed the young girl to sit on one of the stools.

—No, no, let her sit. We can share this big booth. Don‘t people share in this country?

The young girl, who seemed to be about Dallas‘s age but much smaller in size, giggled at Don Chan, who now sat across from her.

—What‘s so funny? Don Chan teased her.

The young girl pulled the corner of her eyes and started moving her head like an Egyptian.

—You‘re mixing up your continents, Don Chan said.

The girl reminded him of Miraluz. Same straight black hair, flat nose, brown skin, heart-shaped lips, an indigenous quality to her face that assumed a trace of South America. Don Chan pulled his own eyes. —This is Asia. He moved his arms like an Egyptian image on a fresco, his hands and face going against each other in opposite directions. —And this is Egypt, which is in Africa. Ask your teacher to show you a globe and maybe you‘ll learn something.

The young girl immediately liked Don Chan. She was tempted to pull his shiny black hair that stuck out in all directions.

—What‘s your name?

—Hush, she whispered.

—You want to help me? Don Chan asked and pulled out his small pair of scissors from his guayabera pocket. He neatly unfolded the newspapers and piled them at the corner of the table.

—I cut and then you read them to me.

The young girl nodded.

He clipped the headlines. After many years of reading lies, he didn‘t have to read the articles to get at the truth. He stacked all the headlines on the coffee-shop table and, like a puzzle, started forming paragraphs with the headlines. The real news was in between the words, what was not being said.